Today's Features

INDEPENDENCE ― A meeting is planned for June 6 to discuss plans to open a prison ministry at the new River North Correctional Center in Independence.
According to reports, neither the Virginia Department of Corrections nor Chaplain Service Prison Ministry of Virginia has funds to place a chaplain at the prison.
The Rev. Terri Gregory, pastor of the Independence United Methodist Church, said plans are to organize a “River North Ministry Council” made up of ministers and laypeople in the surrounding counties of Virginia and North Carolina.

Beginning on May 21, the Galax Recreation Center is offering a new exercise program designed to improve the health of current and former breast cancer patients.
Leading the class is cancer exercise specialist Renee Stoneman, a fitness guru who is dedicated to improving and maintaining cancer patients’ health.

Heather Lynn Poole of Galax and Joseph Eric Sapp of Fries were united in marriage Feb. 16, 2013, by the Rev. Andy Edmonds and the Rev. John Williams at Gospel Chapel in Galax with family and friends.

The bride is the daughter of Elvis and Rhonda Poole of Galax and the granddaughter of William “Bill” Spencer.
She graduated from Carroll County High School. She works at Bojangles.
The bridegroom is the son of Mary Sharlene Sapp of Fries.

Paisley Brooke Snider turned two Feb. 1. She celebrated with a Dora the Explorer party at the Carroll County Public Library with family and friends. Her parents are Curtis and Lorie Snider.

She has two older sisters, Paisley and Blair Snider. Her grandparents are Danny and Linda Deskins of Dugspur and Harold and Joyce Snider of Dublin and the late Kathy Snider. Her great-grandparents are Pauline Marshall of Laurel Fork and Freida Deskins of Hillsville. Her special aunts are Holly Choate and Gina Bigham.

WHITETOP — Grayson Highlands State Park is a beautiful place to visit, hike, camp or just get away from your regular routine. Just be sure to keep your eye to the sky for fast changing weather conditions and always go prepared.
After my many visits there, I always had a lingering disappointment in the back of my mind every time I was about to make my way down the long winding road out of the park – I still had yet to see the infamous wild ponies that inhabit the balds of the mountain top, which I had heard so many stories about.

Randall Zelmer Warf, a World War II veteran who had seen the world past “the Ridge,” had a dream of getting out of the Gossan mines for his family’s sake after returning to the Carroll County community.
Warf never got to fulfill that dream because he died at 27 in a mining accident in the early morning hours of May 1, 1947, according to family members.

Moving a mountain with steam shovels and explosives and hollowing out the earth below through tunneling presented danger and challenges at Gossan Mines in Carroll County.
Work was periodically interrupted as various kinds of emergencies would occur.
Newspaper archives on the mines held by the Carroll County Historical Society Museum contain articles on different kinds of problems that arose at Gossan Mines.

Gossan Mines shaped life in the Iron Ridge community of Carroll County for 57 years, while workers hauled pyrrhotite ore out of the ground for General Chemical.
Mine superintendent Fred E. Johnson oversaw the day-to-day operations at Gossan as part of an international mining career.
Always associated with the extractive industry in his professional life, Johnson earned the moniker “Hardrock.”

DURHAM, N.C. — “Bertha” and “Bobby” no longer have to be tethered to Samantha Riggs' side, after she pulled through transplant surgery with a brand new heart at Duke University Hospital.
Riggs and family had nicknamed the ever-present and cumbersome medical monitoring equipment that were Samantha’s constant companions for months. They joked that it was high time Bertha and Bobby went off on their own.

Virginia Tech article, reprinted with permission
BLACKSBURG — International agriculture education may be a tool for national security, according to research by Austin Larrowe of Woodlawn, a junior at Virginia Tech.
Larrowe is one of 72 students representing 66 U.S. colleges and universities and selected by the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress to be part of the Presidential Fellows program for 2012-13.
Each student has worked on an individual research project throughout the year and will turn in their completed paper in May.